View allAll Photos Tagged MarsReconnaissanceOrbiter
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of gullies in a nameless crater in Utopia Planitia. Color variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter PR image of the Curiosity Rover in Gale Crater. The rover is the black dot near the center of the image. Color/processing variant.
Original caption:
NASAs Curiosity Mars rover appears as a dark speck in this image captured from directly overhead by the agencys Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO.
February 29, 2024
click here for Figure A for PIA26245
Figure A
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover appears as a dark speck in this image captured from directly overhead by the agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO. The orbiter is equipped with a camera capable of viewing objects the size of a dinner table on the Red Planet's surface.
The camera, called the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), has viewed spacecraft on the surface many times before. Here, it captured Curiosity driving up a steep slope on Dec. 29, 2023, the 4,051st Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission.
Curiosity is seen in an area striped with alternating dark and light bands. Scientists are interested in learning what differentiated the materials on the surface to form these different bands.
Figure A: the same image with Curiosity circled.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages MRO for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona.
Images from HiRISE and additional information about MRO are available online at: mars.nasa.gov/mro/ or HiRISE.lpl.arizona.edu.
Curiosity was built by JPL, which leads the mission on behalf of NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
This image shows the geologic contact between the walls of Ganges Chasma and the adjacent plains. Ganges Chasma is one of several deep troughs that make up the Valles Marineris system on Mars. The upper slopes of the walls of Ganges have layering that appears dark, rough, and blocky, consistent with lava flows that are thought to make up the plains around Valles Marineris. Outside of Ganges on the plains is an unusual deposit that appears bright and is eroding back from the walls of Ganges, indicating the deposit isn
Even with the sun high in the sky, this collapse pit on a Martian lava plain is so deep that even the super-sensitive Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter cannot see the bottom. On Earth, openings like this one often lead to extensive cave networks, and on Mars, such a place could shelter life, or even future astronauts.
Sent by: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter | From: Mars | Sent: Oct, 2008 | Credit: NASA/JPL/UA
Added to www.ridingwithrobots.org Oct 31, 2008.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of either A) the Triple Crater, or B) a triple crater. The blurb at the NASA website was rather brief... Color variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of USGS sand dunes (database entry 0081-097) being monitored for changes. Color variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a candidate landing site in Mawrth Vallis for ESA's ExoMars.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of subliming ice on Mars, along with a nice crater in the middle.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of sand dunes on Mars looking very blue (most likely due to contrasting colors of the bedrock and the filters used to take the images). Color/processing variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of fading dust devil tracks on Mars, being used to determine the rate of dustiness, which is, apparently, quite high. Processing variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a possible meteorite impact site on Mars. Color variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of the rover Curiosity in Gale Crater. I haven't been able to find Curiosity in this image yet... Color/processing variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter PR image layers of sulfates with varying levels of hydration on the surface of Mars. Color variant.
Image source: photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21935
Original caption: In this image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, layering within the light-toned sulfate deposit is the result of different states of hydration. Some of the layers have sulfates with little water (known as monohydrated sulfates) whereas other layers have higher amounts of water (called polyhydrated sulfates). The different amounts of water within the sulfates may reflect changes in the water chemistry during deposition of the sulfates, or may have occurred after the sulfates were laid down when heat or pressure forced the water out of some layers, causing a decrease in the hydration state.
Many locations on Mars have sulfates, which are sedimentary rocks formed in water. Within Valles Marineris, the large canyon system that cuts across the planet, there are big and thick sequences of sulfates.
The CRISM instrument on MRO is crucial for telling scientists which type of sulfate is associated with each layer, because each hydration state will produce a spectrum with absorptions at specific wavelengths depending upon the amount of water contained within the sulfate.
The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Image Addition Date:
2017-09-04
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of the residual ice (carbon dioxide ice) cap at the southern pole of Mars.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of eroding sand dunes and mesas in the Hellespontus Region of Mars. Processing variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a layered structure of material in a crater on the northern plains of Mars.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a crater north of Hellas Planitia (a massively huge impact basin) with possible phyllosilicates in its ejecta.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter PR image of Opportunity near Endeavour Crater. Opportunity hasn't responded since the start of the global dust storm (which is now mostly over). This image was taken on 20 September 2018. Annotated by NASA.
Image source: photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22549
Original caption: NASA's Opportunity rover appears as a blip in the center of this square. This image taken by HiRISE, a high-resolution camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows the dust storm over Perseverance Valley has substantially cleared.
The square highlighting Opportunity is just over a half-mile (1 kilometer) across (Figure 1). The image was taken Thursday, September 20, 2018, from about 166 miles (268 kilometers) above the surface.
The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Image Addition Date:
2018-09-25
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of bedrock in Tyrrhena Terra. Inverted grayscale variant.
Image source: photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22784
Original caption: Large craters, like this 50-kilometer diameter one, can uplift material from below and form a mountain-like central peak. Craters of this size on Mars become unstable as they form and collapse due to gravity. Craters with central peaks and terraced rims are referred to as "complex" craters.
Geologists study these central peaks because the uplifted bedrock was once deep within the Martian crust. A 3D perspective shows heavily-fractured bedrock exposed within the peak, and also dark-toned and fragmental rocks that formed during the impact process.
Sometimes, we observe similar rocks in the crater wall terraces. Some areas of the terrace show dark-toned materials coating and surrounding the white- and green-colored bedrock. This dark-toned rock was the once-molten material that was produced by the tremendous energy generated during the formation of the crater. Similarly, the impact melt material coats and surrounds the higher-standing bedrock of the peak. There are additional exposures of bedrock in the northern wall-terraces of the crater.
Previous HiRISE images have focused largely on central structures, but clearly the wall-terraces of these craters may also be informative in our exploration of the Martian subsurface.
The map is projected here at a scale of 25 centimeters (9.8 inches) per pixel. [The original image scale is 25.8 centimeters (10.2 inches) per pixel (with 1 x 1 binning); objects on the order of 77 centimeters (30.3 inches) across are resolved.] North is up.
The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Image Addition Date:
2018-10-01
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter PR image of colors in the hills of Ganges Chasma on Mars. Color/processing variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of three craters, mostly superimposed on each other. Processing variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a slope streak on Mars caused by a meteorite impacting the surface of Mars.
Image source: www.uahirise.org/ESP_054066_1920
Original caption: This HiRISE image captures a new, dated (within about a decade) impact crater that triggered a slope streak. When the meteoroid hit the surface and exploded to make the crater, it also destabilized the slope and initiated this avalanche.
The crater itself is only 5 meters across, but the streak it started is 1 kilometer long! Slope streaks are created when dry dust avalanches leave behind dark swaths on dusty Martian hills. The faded scar of an old avalanche is also visible to the side of the new dark streak.
NB: Cutouts have been rotated so north is downward.
Written by: Ingrid Daubar (11 June 2018)
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of either A) the Triple Crater, or B) a triple crater. The blurb at the NASA website was rather brief...
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of USGS sand dunes (database entry 0081-097) being monitored for changes.
Edited and cropped Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a bluish ("purple" according to the MRO headline) mountain on Mars. Color variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of ridges and light-tone outcroppings north of Atlantis Chaos. Color variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of part of Jezero Crater, landing site for the Mars 2020 mission. This is part of the petrified delta that is of interest. Processing variant.
Original caption: A Candidate Landing Site for the 2020 Mission in Jezero Crater
This image was acquired in 2015 and is one of over two dozen images we took to help the Mars 2020 mission decide where to land in Jezero Crater. While this image is not exactly where the rover will land or explore, it underscores the importance of the HiRISE camera to provide high resolution images for future exploration.
NASA/JPL/University of Arizona (Alt: 321 km, less than 5 km across.)
Source: www.uahirise.org/ESP_042315_1985
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of part of the Eridania Region being examined as a possible landing site for NASA's 2020 Mars rover mission (a rover very similar to Curiosity). Color variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter PR image of Opportunity near Endeavour Crater. Opportunity hasn't responded since the start of the global dust storm (which is now mostly over). This image was taken on 20 September 2018. Annotated by NASA. Color/processing variant.
Image source: photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22549
Original caption: NASA's Opportunity rover appears as a blip in the center of this square. This image taken by HiRISE, a high-resolution camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows the dust storm over Perseverance Valley has substantially cleared.
The square highlighting Opportunity is just over a half-mile (1 kilometer) across (Figure 1). The image was taken Thursday, September 20, 2018, from about 166 miles (268 kilometers) above the surface.
The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Image Addition Date:
2018-09-25
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of terrain near the boundary of a dichotomy of surface types on Mars. Color variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a small crater with a stratified mound on its floor. Color variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a mound in Juventae Chasma on Mars. Color/processing variant.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of stratigraphy exposed by an impact crater. Grayscale version.
Edited Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of Martian sand dunes in the USGS sand dune data base (entry number 2670-522). Image was taken to see the changes over time. Color variant.